


Hold the Phone (Hold my Hand)

by GoldenTruth813



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Partners, Aurors, BlackBerry - Freeform, Draco thinks his stylus is a wand, Early 00 mobile phones, HP: EWE, Humor, M/M, Nokia, POV Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 20:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14433609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenTruth813/pseuds/GoldenTruth813
Summary: The Auror Department gets a budget increase for mobile phones. Harry is totally fine with this until Malfoy has the audacity to get a BlackBerry.





	Hold the Phone (Hold my Hand)

**Author's Note:**

> Based on hilarious discussions in the Drarry Discord about what phones everyone might've had in the early 00's. Thank you aibidil for the quick beta you are, as always, the best! <3

When Robards agreed to Hermione’s budget extension to get all Senior Aurors Muggle mobile phones, Harry thought it was a brilliant idea. There’d been so many times he’d been unable to let Ron and Hermione know he’d be late for pub night or make sure Draco didn’t forget the extra naan when he picked up curry. Of course, Hermione told Harry that wasn’t at all what the mobile phones were intended for. They were to be used in emergencies and in order to protect cover.

Harry, however, thought it was an emergency if Ron and Hermione didn’t know he was late, because then they didn’t order his drink and trying to find his way to the bar on a Saturday night wasn’t worth the burnt crips and overpriced lager. That, and when Draco forgot the extra naan he didn’t want to share, and what the fuck was the point of curry without naan?

“Get something practical. Something you can use. Nothing flashy,” Hermione instructed, handing each Auror a transfer note from Gringotts that they could use at the exchange office downstairs to get Muggle money.

Harry tried to ask Malfoy if he needed help picking out a mobile phone. Malfoy didn’t know anything about Muggle phones (and okay, fine, Harry didn’t know either, but he liked to assume he’d know a fair bit more than Malfoy would). Malfoy, however, shook his head, insisting he didn’t need Harry’s help and reminding him not to be late the next day. 

Harry thought perhaps it was a bit ridiculous the next morning the way all the Aurors were showing off their new mobiles like they were wands (or cocks), comparing sizes and talking about the way it felt in their hands. But all the same, he couldn’t deny that he did sort of like his phone. It was practical and a decent size and fit just fine in his back pocket. It wasn’t showy like Ron’s phone—and for fuck’s sake, Harry was definitely going to have a word with Hermione about letting Ron pick a Razr, because he kept flipping it open and shut as if the ability to have a closing latch on something was magic.

“And look, just put your thumb here and flip it open, bam—it gets bigger,” Ron said, showing off his phone to Creevey, who was eyeing it with a fair bit of jealousy. Ron caught sight of Harry, who was trying to make his way into the tea room unnoticed. “Oi—mate! Show us what you got! Pull it out, then!”

Harry’s face flushed as he remembered that exact sentence being uttered in sixth year under the influence of a bottle of firewhiskey and the promise that none of them would mention it again. Of course, Seamus liked to mention it at least once a month, which made it hard for Harry to pretend they’d not all done—well, whatever it was they’d done, which he refused to think about.

“Yes, Potter, show us what you got,” Malfoy said suggestively, winking at Harry as he came out of the tea room. Harry wanted to be cross at him, but then Malfoy passed him a cup of perfectly made tea, and his gratefulness won out.

He made a show of taking a long, slow sip of his tea, until Ron and Malfoy were coughing and tapping their wrists. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his mobile phone.

“Wicked,” Ron whistled, reaching for the mobile phone and holding it in his hand, turning it over to inspect it.

"Potter, did you pick that hideous Nokia just because it's red?" Draco drawled, raising an eyebrow at Harry. Harry’s face felt hot. He sure as hell wasn’t going to admit that yes, he mostly had picked the phone because it was the only one that came in red.

“Well what did you get, then? Why don’t you show us?” Harry tried not to notice the way Malfoy smirked, as if he’d been waiting all morning to be asked.

“So glad you asked, Potter,” Malfoy said smoothly, taking his hands out from behind his back to reveal a rather enormous black phone with a giant keyboard and an obnoxiously large screen.

“Oi, what the bloody fuck is that?” Ron asked, shoving Harry’s mobile phone back at him and reaching for Malfoy’s. It was on the tip of Harry’s tongue to call Ron a traitor, but he thought that might be bad form. Best keep those thoughts to himself. So instead he glared, feeling even more agitated when Ron did not seem to get the silent message that Harry was annoyed with him.

“It’s a BlackBerry, of course,” Malfoy answered smoothly.

“What all does it do?” Creevey asked, taking the Blackberry and turning it over in his hand.

Malfoy preened. “What doesn’t it do?”

“It’s too big,” Harry interjected, wondering why everyone was looking at him like that. It  _ was _ too big. Obviously.

Malfoy snatched the BlackBerry back from Creevey as if he had been personally insulted, cradling it like it was a Malfoy family heirloom and not a fucking handheld computer. “Can’t handle something with a little weight in your hands, Potter?”

Ron, the fucker, had the gall to laugh as Creevey and the other Junior Aurors whistled and howled with laughter.

“Oh just...fuck off,” Harry grumbled at Malfoy. He had half a mind to shove his tea back at him, but he wasn’t that big of a masochist—Malfoy knew exactly how Harry liked his tea and always used the nice loose leaf tea he kept hidden in the back of the cupboard in the Mellow Birds Instant Coffee tin so no one else would use it.

Of course, if Harry thought that was the end of it, he was wrong. Over the next week everywhere Harry went, Malfoy was already there, showing off his fucking BlackBerry and proclaiming all the things it could do. “Leagues above a Nokia, for example; those are for simple folk,” he muttered every time he noticed Harry glaring.

Things only got worse from there. The following week, Malfoy was officially assigned as Harry’s new partner. It wasn’t that Harry was mad about that. He’d known it was coming once Ron got the promotion, and he liked Malfoy. Well, sort of. Malfoy was still a pain in the arse and prickly and bossy as fuck and a know-it-all and kind of dramatic, but well, he was also rather funny and he was actually a damn good Auror and the few cases they’d worked on together over the last few months to test their compatibility had shown Harry that they were definitely compatible. Maybe a little too compatible.

No—sharing an office, being partners with Malfoy, these things were fine. It was just that apparently, where Malfoy went, so too went the stupid BlackBerry. And fuck, Harry hated that thing.

It was just...too big. It didn’t even fit in Malfoy’s robe pockets or his trousers—not that anything would fit in there, because the stupid git clearly wore them two sizes too small and honestly, how his cock fit in those trousers was beyond Harry.

Everything about it was ridiculous. Which honestly fit Malfoy, since he was ridiculous. But if Harry had to sit through one more revision meeting with Robards watching Malfoy poke at the fucking screen with the tiny little stylus he was going to lose his mind. What the fuck was Malfoy even doing on that thing all the time, anyway?

Harry rarely remembered to take his mobile phone out of his pocket or desk drawer. In fact, he often went days between checking it, at which point he’d pull it out and realise it’d gone dead at some point and by the time he’d get the bloody thing charged it’d be beeping at him with so many notifications he’d get a bit overwhelmed and shove it back in the drawer again, resolving to reply to his friends later. Of course, later rarely came. He just...didn’t get the appeal of the mobile phone. Sure, it was nice in emergencies but it was boring and impersonal and Harry didn’t like being available all the time. He didn’t like that people expected him to answer them immediately just because he had a bloody phone in his pocket. 

Malfoy seemed to love it, though. He walked around the office with that ridiculously oversized Blackberry on the side of his head like it was permanently affixed with a well-placed Sticking Charm. And if he wasn’t talking on it, he was playing on it, pulling the bloody tiny stylus out of the side and poking buttons and muttering to himself about his phone’s storage and memory updates and whether his stocks were up. (And when the bloody hell did Malfoy get Muggle stock investments, anyway?) It rankled Harry’s sensibilities. Malfoy wasn’t possibly important enough to be on the stupid phone all the time.

Harry, in an attempt to tear Malfoy away from his mobile phone, even invited him out for fish and chips on Friday after a long case. But when the chippy was closed—some sort of kitchen fire—Harry was at a loss where else to go. Malfoy pulled out the fucking Blackberry and proceeded to talk to himself and poke the screen before dragging Harry off on a wild goose chase for some restaurant he’d found on the internet. Harry felt conflicted—he didn’t want the internet on his mobile phone, but he also felt annoyed that Malfoy had something he didn’t have. Of course, he held back on voicing that thought, since Malfoy’s internet did end up getting them to a small Chinese place Harry had never been to with the most divine dumplings and egg drop soup. So he supposed maybe sometimes Malfoy’s BlackBerry was useful.

But still, that didn’t mean he needed to pull it out all the time.

“For fuck’s sake, put that thing away!” Harry complained the following Monday. Granted, it wasn’t Malfoy’s fault Harry had tried to stupidly drink away his frustration on a Sunday night even knowing he had to be at work early the next morning and was therefore nursing a raging hangover. And it wasn’t Malfoy’s fault that Harry was becoming increasingly positive that the only reason he cared how much attention Malfoy paid to his mobile phone was because it meant he was paying less attention to Harry. And well, the realisation he’d made after that had led him to down an entire bottle of Firewhiskey to stop himself pulling out his own mobile phone and texting Malfoy.

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” Malfoy laughed, popping the stylus back into his Blackberry and setting it on his desk. He eyed Harry for several long minutes before pulling his desk drawer open and fishing around until he found a small vial, shoving it at Harry. “There, drink that, you’re an absolute nightmare.”

“Thanks,” Harry replied gratefully, licking his lips as he swallowed the last bit. Malfoy’s potions always tasted of lemon and ginger, and though Harry didn’t have a particular affinity for either he found the combination inexplicably comforting just the same.

“Why do you like that thing so much?” Harry found himself asking ten minutes later when Malfoy picked it up again, as if unable to not have the bloody thing in his hands at all times.

Malfoy paused, looking at him. “It’s useful. I like things that are useful. Plus...it’s got a little wand.” He waved the stylus around dramatically. And Harry couldn’t help it, he laughed.

It was ridiculous. Harry was pretty sure he was losing his mind if the sight of Draco Malfoy brandishing a stylus like it was the Elder Wand, as he checked his Muggle stocks, had Harry hot and bothered. And wondering how Malfoy would handle a wand of a different sort.

Things somehow got more ridiculous from there. After Harry made an offhanded comment about Malfoy’s Blackberry obviously being a nuisance since it was too big for any of his pockets, Draco disappeared to visit Hermione for lunch and came back looking like the kneazle that got the canary. It was less than twenty minutes before Harry figured out why. He said he needed a cuppa and Malfoy stood up, pulled open his robe pockets and pulled out a fucking kettle. He then dug around and pulled out two tea cups, a small tin of tea, and a new package of the chocolate digestives Harry liked. It didn’t take long for Harry to realise Hermione had taught Draco to magically expand his pockets.

The next morning in the tearoom when the sugar bowl was empty, Malfoy spent an entire fifteen minutes banging around inside his ruddy pockets until he pulled out several crumbled sugar packets from the Chinese restaurant he’d taken Harry to weeks ago. Harry took them gratefully—because who the fuck drank tea without sugar—but silently wondered why Malfoy having crumpled sugar packets in his pocket was something Harry’s brain was filing away as adorable.

Harry found himself increasingly annoyed at his inability to continue to be annoyed. Like how every time Malfoy’s Blackberry went  _ ding— _ which it did an awful fucking lot—he’d spend ages digging around in his pockets, pulling out snacks and quills and, once, a fucking wax embosser before triumphantly exclaiming  _ “Aha, I found it!”  _ and holding the BlackBerry up to his ear to answer the call.

Every single time, it was on the tip of Harry’s tongue to single scream, “You’re a wizard—just Accio the fucking BlackBerry!” but he never did. He tried not to think too hard about why he didn’t, or why he apparently found Malfoy’s pursed lips and look of concentration as he searched for it endearing. 

Harry felt like he’d been dropped into an alternative universe where his partner was apparently Mary fucking Poppins.

Worse still, Harry apparently found this snarky, posher version of Mary Poppins attractive—and Harry didn’t know what that said about him. But soon he found himself saying things like, “What else do you have in your pockets?” and “Maybe we should go out to dinner again so you can restock your supply of sugar packets.”

Harry wasn’t sure what he expected Malfoy to say, but, “It’s about fucking time you asked,” certainly wasn’t it.

Harry, not wanting Malfoy to spend the entire night with the blasted Blackberry in his hands, challenged Malfoy to put the mobile phones in the centre of the table, and whoever checked his phone first had to pay. Malfoy, never one to turn down Harry’s challenges or an opportunity to highlight the quality disparity between their mobile phones, readily agreed. But at the end of the night, Harry was pleased to see that Malfoy had no trouble not reaching for his Blackberry (which sat untouched between them, Harry’s Nokia teetering on top of it) when his hand held Harry’s.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://goldentruth813.tumblr.com/) <3


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